Sure thing.
Everybody in every part of the world is being preached to and have been commanded to repent and believe in the gospel to have their sins remitted and be saved. There’s the gift of eternal life promised to everyone who repents, believes and moves towards Jesus.
There’s several problems here.
Firstly lost sinners weren’t capable of responding to the command,
second there’s no substitute for their sins even if they were to take us up on our offer.
The gospels promises are being made in
bad faith to lost people, there’s no saviour for them and yet God commands Christians to preach as if Jesus is there for the remission of their sins, any lost person who considered moving towards Christ could even receive
“illumination” for a time, having the word reside within their hearts, after which they’re
“justly” smashed on account of
“ungratefulness” with
“even greater blindness.” Under Calvinism
literally anybody can be the victim of this.
Third under Calvinism the reason sinners are incapable of responding isn’t simply because of
“original sin,” rather they’re incapable of responding because God decreed before the foundation of the world that they’d fall from grace and be incapable of responding.
John Calvin:
“God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it.”
This point was in my original reply when I explained
“Still, the only reason they didn’t come was because they were incapable to begin with, made so by my decree before the world began.”
You replied about the bad faith offer and general call by contending with only one of my above points, the very first point, namely that people who are ultimately lost were incapable.
God has said if we live in perfect obedience to the law, we will live forever, yet I don't hear you complaining that none can do so. What is the difference here,
My reply was that God commanding people to do things they’re
incapable of doing would be an absurdity, and punishing people for not being able to do things which you have rendered them incapable of doing would be another absurdity.
Adding your new absurdity about the inability of man to obey Gods law
(and being punished by the God who made them incapable of obeying) doesn’t help repair the earlier absurdity of God
(according to Calvinism) offering free gifts to the world which he hasn’t actually provided, then actively punishing people for not receiving the gift he’s not providing.
“What’s the difference,” You’ve asked, hopefully I’ve shared a few accurate differences. Your point
appears to be something like this:
“why complain about the people being incapable of accepting the gospel but not complain about people being incapable of obeying law.”
That’s not answering the first problem, it’s just adding another problem. We don’t solve bad theology by assuming more bad theology is true, thus
“proving” our first piece of bad theology by presupposing the accuracy of a separate piece of bad theology.
Your reply wrongly assumes that within the content of my beliefs I green light an inability to obey the law
(but red light an inability to believe the gospel.) Which would make me a hypocrite for questioning the first belief and not the second.
Me
inferring what you’re
assuming is a tricky subject though
So we hold on tight.
You seem to be arguing there’s something amiss here because I’ve not
“complained” about an inability to obey the law, basing that upon your understanding of the doctrine of original sin
(an already hotly contested topic.)
It’s an unwarranted assumption though, there’s a large plurality of valid opinions on that subject in particular.
I imagine my thinking on the topic of things like original sin and everything it can entail
(e.g. imputed guilt, federal headship and inability) is very different from yours.
So we can assume there’s good reason why I can question the bad faith offer of the gospel but don’t need to question the inability of man to obey Gods law
(doing so without any internal tension or hypocrisy.)
Not going into my view is simply a best effort on my part at keeping us in the short grass and out of the tangling weeds.
You picking up on the most tangly portion of the reply again leads me to believe the remainder of my post
(which you didn’t contest) is once again fairly generous to the views of 5 point Calvinists and accurate to their stated confessions.
Although obviously my verdict on some of these beliefs and pronouncements like
“that’s an absurdity” won’t be shared by most of my Calvinist friends.
The bad faith offer of the gospel is like me smiling to your face and saying,
“I have a present for you, Mark.” Hiding my hands behind my back the entire time. There’s literally nothing behind my back for you, but I enlist all of your friends and neighbours and the Christians everywhere to tell you
“He has something for you. Taste and see that he’s good.”
Beforehand of course I had to drug you or work some kind of voodoo on you so that you hate me and will refuse the non existent present no matter what means I use to try and convince you
(unless it’s 1 very special irresistible means which I’ll never use.)
Although I do have
a special call I use
on believers that can mimic perfectly the true irresistible call, I use that to mess with people and trick them into receiving illumination, thinking they’re really saved Christians when they’re not.... because I’m hilarious like that
jkjkjkjkjkjk
Finally decades later I stop smiling and say
“actually, I didn’t really like you all that much, I think I hate you now, in fact I’ve always hated you.” Then I punish you for refusing the gift you never accepted
(even though there never was any gift and I actively stopped you from accepting anyway.)
Or even better you do accept the gift and I punish you anyway, because I gave you my hilarious special false born again experience. Now you’ve
“converted,” spent your entire life believing you’re a Christian, making your salvation sure, then I pull a surprise ending on you and say you got no saviour from it. My illumination was a divine game and now I can punish you
even more than before
jkjkjkjkjkjkjkX2222
Some may step into the mechanics of the Gospel, but they show up unclothed in Christ's righteousness.
They’re
“drawn” or
“called” into the mechanics of the gospel by God himself and through our preaching ministry, and with the Word indwelling their person no less, that’s a process indistinguishable to us from a real conversion, if John Calvins quote holds true.
So there’s my other point about making your election sure, how’s the sureness even possible when God can promise you a gift he won’t provide and illuminate you with false signs and wonders as if you’ve received the gift.
There’s a false calling, false gifts and a false saviour who isn’t there for believing people, where’s the sense in making our election sure in John Calvins world?
So once again, in light of the nature of 5 point Calvinism and the false hope, can Calvinists affirm those two beliefs I’ve already mentioned.
A. Jesus died for me.
B. God loves me with His most deep kind of love and His will for me is that I live.
Can the Calvinists in chat confirm these things
in light of the false hope, or
(as I suspect is the case) does their theological commitment to 5 point Calvinism preclude positively affirming those beliefs.
